DorkFish 4: The Ruthless Scheme

Three minutes...a lifetime...gone.

10:11 A.M.
Origami River

Benjamin Braedon slid the empty magazine from his 1911 so he could reload for the next round. Beside him, Welling and Milligan did the same.

“Well, boys,” he began, “I’ve got a hot one for you.”

Milligan took the bait. “What?”

“Did you guys hear that Padalecki had the baby?”

From his position behind the line, Misha picked up on Jared’s name like radar.

“No, I didn’t know,” Welling said. “When?”

“Early Thursday morning, according to the Regional,” Ben replied. “What’s interesting, though, is he named his baby after the boss. Quite the show of respect, don’t you think?”

“What?” Misha paled. He prayed to God he’d just misheard that, because if the Regional had printed something about the baby, Jensen and Kane would have it within the hour.

He muscled his way through the line and stepped right up to Ben. “What did you say?”

Ben exchanged glances with the others. “The Regional," he explained slowly, almost as if he were savoring the words. “They printed a birth announcement for Jared, and apparently he decided to name his son Justice Ross Padalecki. Now why else do you suppose he’d pick that name unless -”

Misha grabbed a hold of Ben’s jacket. “Fuck all that shit, Braedon. When was the announcement printed?”

Ben froze, not expecting the wild look in their commander’s eyes. “I - I don’t know.”

A small circle began forming around them, but Misha didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore except finding out exactly how much time he had before Jensen touched down stateside.

“You don’t know,” he repeated coldly.

“No, I -”

Misha punched him so hard he hit the ground, throwing a livid scarlet slash of blood across the dirt. “I’m not fucking around here! When was it goddamn printed?”

Ben went white with rolling fury. “What the fuck!” he snarled, ready to leap to his feet for the fight but Misha kept him earthbound with a vicious kick to the ribs.

Next thing Ben knew, he was staring down the barrel of a silver Para Ordnance.

Misha cocked it in eloquent emphasis of his point, the sound cracking like thunder in the silent range as forty men stared open-mouthed at their marshal gone literally ballistic.

He reached down and seized Ben by the collar of his jacket again, pressing the muzzle of the gun hard into his temple. “When.”

Ben glared up at him. “Why the fuck do you care so much?”

“You’re wasting my time, Braedon,” Misha warned. “Talk or you’re dead.”

Then the unthinkable happened.

Despite Ben’s torn mouth, he began to smile up at the man who held him at gunpoint.

“He doesn’t know,” Ben marveled as he began to laugh. “That’s it, isn’t it, Misha? He lied to me when he said he’d told him. And he still hasn’t? You actually managed to get him to keep it from him? God, you are so fucked when he gets back here!”

Ben’s laughter turned into screaming when Misha shot him in the shoulder.

“Got anything else to say, funny man?” Misha roared. “Tell me when it was printed, or I’ll empty this whole fucking magazine into every ball- and- socket joint you have, capisce?”